blog Long-term readers may recall that local Microsoft Office 365 Loryan Strant — co-founder of cloud-focused company Paradyne — has been a regular writer on the interaction between the various Apple and Microsoft ecosystems. At various points Strant — who personally prefers the Microsoft ecosystem — has delved into the Apple world in order to further educate himself, using MacBooks, iPhones and their ilk.
Your writer has enjoyed following Strant’s articles. And we quite enjoyed the insights from his latest. Strant’s latest iPhone model unfortunately died, and although he received good customer service from Apple over the issue, he eventually decided to switch back to a Microsoft Lumia device. He writes (we recommend you click here for the full article):
“As I’ve written before: I do strongly believe that Windows 10 Mobile is a superior choice for a business-grade phone that can be used for personal use as well, as opposed to iOS and Android that are built for consumers and simply run and operate business apps.
In any case this has been my personal and somewhat short journey away from and back to Windows phone. I feel home now.”
Personally, I like seeing when technologists of any stripe experiment with different platforms. The major consumer platform vendors — Apple, Google, Microsoft and to a certain degree Samsung — are constantly trying to lock us into their ecosystems. They want us to use all of their products and none of the competitions’.
But often there are point solutions which are better at certain things, so it makes sense to diversify.
In just one small example, I recently bought a brand new, high-spec Apple iMac to use as my work and home desktop. I bought an iMac because I prefer to use Apple’s rock-solid and stable Mac OS X operating system, and I personally believe Apple’s single form factor iMac PCs are the best option for my particular situation.
However … there are plenty of games which are not available on Mac OS X, so last night I installed Windows 10 on this machine as well. Some may see that as sullying the purity of my iMac. But I prefer to see it as enhancing its functionality.
It’s for this reason that I always enjoy Strant’s posts. He’s primarily a Microsoft-focused technologist, but he has an open mind. And that can sometimes be a rarity in our idealistic industry.
Image credit: 惟①刻¾, Creative Commons
Windows phones are excellent if you are content to operate in a limited ecosystem. I can understand why he would prefer a Windows Phone if he is purely focused on business. The hardware is excellent, the software is reliable and the only downside I’ve found is a propensity toward nuclear fusion type temperatures on some websites. Otherwise, excellent phone and ecosystem.
With that said, as a consumer phone, I’m moving back to Android. I’ve had a 930 for the last year and there are just too many consumer app gaps to manage. Some are just lacking functionality, others are missing entirely. For someone who wants a phone that keeps up with rapid consumer change, I can’t recommend the Windows Phone. If you just want a capable smart phone that will have the major apps, then you could do worse than the Lumia range.
And that there is part of the reason why developers won’t create apps for the Windows ecosystem. The users aren’t there, so why waste money creating something that won’t get used by enough people to justify it… (I’m looking at you CUA…)
I love my Lumia 930, and I can live without some of the “must have” apps (in my opinion, they are a waste of time…, but that’s my opinion), but I can’t stand it when companies use the “market share” as an excuse to not develop apps (I’m still looking at you CUA…)
Unless someone breaks the “catch-22”, the gap can’t be filled.
A company the size and wealth of Microsoft should be proving financial incentives to key developers to ensure the apps ppl want are available on the mobile Windows platform.
The (large multinational) company I worked for until Xmas 2015 (my choice, career change) has never once made a Windows Phone App; yet make several for iOS/Android. Why? Because there is, and I quote from an email I received from one of the marketing execs, “no compelling reason to invest development and support resources towards a mobile operating system no one uses”.
And they make _nothing_ for consumers, it’s all B2B.
Why, RIM??? WHY??????????????????????
I’ve never found apps lacking on any platform, tis more a matter of deciding which of the 9 or 58 of the similar social media or photo sharing or such is the least annoying. I suppose if you can’t live without some particular implementation of an app or the web equivalent that’s on a platform, you go with it. Not that many of the Windows Phones have been hardy bulletproof sturdy devices either. As far as the software, I’ve not been much fond of iOS (the cost of the device, the oft ham-handed way the parent company does business) and as far as Android, forget the lock they have on the store… I find that OS to be rather…. Low-tech and klunky? But that’s why there is more than one choice of platform. And don’t forget, even a small slice if the market is a lot of phones. This year looks to be interesting for Windows in general, we’ll see how this unified idea goes, shan’t we.
I had a Windows 7 something (tiled UI and all that) phone for a while a few years ago and despite the lack apps I really liked it… A lot more than the Android phone I got after that.
When I got a personal phone again I went straight back to an iPhone and have happily stayed there ever since.
My personal phone is an android. Mostly because I use it as a gaming device first, phone second.
My work phone is an Iphone.
I would like to try out the windows phones, but at this stage they don’t have the apps I am interested in in the personal sphere, and we are locked into Iphones in the Business sphere.
If I was going in fresh, I would probably look seriously at Windows Phones for a business point of view. The interoperability with the desktop would make them desirable. As would the upcoming potential with the new techs coming out.
Ios is as suggested a commercial device with some business apps. As a managed, controlled device in a business dominated by standardisation of environments, it is terrible. Requiring ridiculous consumer based management, with no override available other than proof of purchase.
I only have one thing to say really and that is that chips are getting faster and smaller. As time goes by there is less of a need for both mobile and desktop specific operating systems. Convergence is the future and devices will mostly hold the same systems while another OS rises to take the place of mobile OSes in low power devices.
Apple is moving their mobile OS onto progressively larger devices while Microsoft moves their desktop OS onto smaller devices and I for one would rather run a cut down version of my desktop software on my phone than my phones apps on a desktop.
I started using Windows Mobile 2000 or 2003 since a decade or so ago and now have a 640xl or whatever they call it, The Big Bstd.
I started using them because they were mobile computers which could replace my Phone/iPAQ combo but was a little sad when they moved to WP6 as it took away my total control over the device in the quest for an app store. I still use a few apps which were first coded for WM2003 but have been redesigned for WP8 and have grown quite accustomed to the Metro GUI while looking forward to a future where a desktop OS runs on my phone and I welcome that day with open arms.
To this day I still carry 2 devices with me most times and one is my phone which is accompanied by my 10″ Windows10 tablet.
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